Angry Me is very angry- about everything. He is particularly angry when he can’t find his bright red bike. Mellow Yellow Me shows him what friendship is all about as he (or she) listens to Angry Red and helps him with his problems.

Told in rhyme, this story looks at how Angry Me feels when he gets cross and how he behaves when in a rage. When he loses his bike, Angry Me needs help, but he doesn’t know how to reach out to others and ask. Mellow Yellow Me listens to him and helps him calm down.

Using this book, it would be possible to explore and discuss certain behaviours in a non-threatening way. Children could advise Angry Me and suggest ways of dealing with his emotions. How else might Mellow Yellow have helped him? What helps them to cool off when angry?

The illustrations are bold and bright, working well with the verses on each page. The large faces are very expressive and offer a real focus for the emotion, very useful for those children who find reading faces difficult.

A good resource for PSHE lessons, this book could be the starting point for writing about emotions, including poetry, innovating stories, writing in role. Children could collect emotion synonyms and antonyms, using Zones of Relevance to sort these and decide how to use them. It could be used to encourage children with anger issues to decide the strategies they will use to calm down.

The first in a series, it will be interesting to see which other emotions will be covered.